Posts tagged with: research

As a new feature for the Journal of Markets & Morality, the folks at Journaltalk have helped us create discussion pages for the editorial and each of the articles of our most recent issue, vol. 17, no. 1 (Spring 2014). The issue is forthcoming in print in the next few weeks but already published online. While all articles require a subscription (or a small fee per article), this issue’s editorial on the state of academic peer review is open access.

Just another reason to sign up for or recommend a subscription to the Journal of Markets & Morality.

The Acton Institute has again been named a leading think tank by the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program. Writing about this new, 2012 ranking, Alejandro Chafuen, explained what constitutes a good think tank on the Forbes website:

A “market-oriented” think tank is grounded on the reality that respect for private property within a context of rule of law with limited government has been the path for the wealth of nations. Think tanks that are not market-oriented study how to redistribute wealth, how to increase taxation, or the optimum rate of monetary debasement. Governments have typically relied on their own internal think tanks for that research, and complemented it by research from state-subsidized universities. Market-oriented think tanks focus on finding private solutions to public problems.

Chafuen is president and chief executive officer of Atlas Economic Research Foundation and board member of the Acton Institute. You can read his full article, “Thinking About Think Tanks: Which Ones Are the Best?” at Forbes.com.

The full news release from the Acton Institute follows:

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (Jan. 24, 2013)—The University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program ranked the Acton Institute among the top social policy and top U.S. think tanks with the release of its 2012 Global Go-To Think Tanks Report. In addition, Acton was cited for having one of the best advocacy campaigns.

Global History and Culture Centre – University of Warwick – 12-14 December 2012. This International conference held at the Global History and Culture Centre of the University of Warwick seeks to explore how our understanding of early modern global connections changes if we consider the role material culture played in shaping such connections. In what ways did material objects participate in the development of the multiple processes often referred to as ‘globalisation’? How did objects contribute to the construction of such notions as hybridism and cosmopolitanism? What was their role in trade and migration, gifts and diplomacy, encounters and conflict? What kind of geographies did they create in the early modern world? What was their cultural value vis-à-vis their economic value? In short, this conference seeks to explore the ways in which commodities and connections intersected in the early modern world.

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, more commonly known as the New Poor Law, is arguably the most notorious piece of legislation in British history. Deeply controversial in its day, it has unsurprisingly generated a dense and diverse scholarly literature ever since, yet one in which the national capital has played a remarkably minor role. Indeed, David R. Green’s study is the first to attempt to explore the history of the Poor Law in nineteenth-century London in its geographic and administrative entirety. One need not read far to understand why, for the history of the Poor Law in London prior to and post 1834 is enormously complex. Green is to be commended both for undertaking a difficult task and for producing a study that is remarkably easy to read, despite the intricacies of its subject matter. His study makes the arcane history of poor relief in nineteenth-century London accessible to the non-specialist, while simultaneously yielding significant insights about this history for specialist scholars of poverty, policy, and the nineteenth-century British state.

The Department of History at Brown University invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professorship in the history of capitalism defined broadly to encompass candidates working in labor history (free and unfree), business history, economic history, history of economic thought, history of consumer society, and the political economy of the nineteenth and/or twentieth-century US.

The recent financial crisis, and repeated corporate scandals, raise serious questions about whether a business school education contributes to what some have described as a culture of greed. The dominance of economic-related courses in MBA curricula led us to assess the effects of economics education on greed in three studies using multiple methods. Study 1 found that economics majors and students who had taken multiple economics courses kept more money in a money allocation task (the Dictator Game). Study 2 found that economics education was associated with more positive attitudes toward greed and toward one’s own greedy behavior. Study 3 found that a short statement on the societal benefits of self-interest led to more positive ratings of greed’s moral acceptability, even for noneconomics students. These effects suggest that economics education may have serious, albeit unintended consequences on our students’ attitudes toward greed.

Talking Points, October 15, 2012, Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, with Amy Black (Wheaton College), Timothy Gombis (GRTS), and George Marsden (Notre Dame). The thrust of Talking Points 2012 is to generate reflection on how we might restore civility in America as a model for restoring and fostering civil discourse around the world. The last half-century has seen the emergence of evangelical Christians as a significant force in national elections and debates over domestic and foreign policy. Unfortunately, Christian civic engagement has been hijacked by polarizing voices and unimaginative choices. It isn’t simply the case that in order to be “politically engaged” we must choose to vote for party A or B. Christian civic responsibility and political engagement can be more creative and redemptive, and more civil and gracious, than has been modeled by leading figures over the last several decades. Grand Rapids Theological Seminary has invited three leading scholars to help us reflect upon how “Christian Civic Engagement” has taken shape in America, and to imagine how we might take up these rights and responsibilities as new opportunities emerge.

The Business History Conference announces its search for editor of Enterprise & Society: The International Journal of Business History. Published by Oxford University Press, Enterprise & Society is one of the world’s leading journals in business history. Interdisciplinary in approach and international in scope, it offers a forum for research on the historical relations between businesses and their larger political, cultural, institutional, social, and economic contexts.

This article suggests that the scope and meaning of human rights, and its relationship to religion, is anything but settled, and that this gives an opportunity to those who support a role for religion in public life to intervene. Such intervention should address four main issues. First, it should ensure that judges engage in attempting to understand religious issues from a cognitively internal viewpoint. Secondly, it should articulat a justification for freedom of religion that fully captures the core of the significance of religious belief, and the importance of the religious principles in the public sphere. Thirdly, it should ensure engagement and dialogue between the churches and others on the meaning of human dignity, given its centrality to religious and secular perspectives on rights. Lastly, the churches should consider more carefully what it means to give ‘public reasons’ in the political and cultural context, and how it can engage in the process of ‘public reasoning’ regarding human rights.

The non-governmental organization (NGO) is perceived not only as a disseminator of information, monitor of human rights, or provider of services, but also as a shaper of national, regional, and international policy. Many members of the lay faithful, working with others from various Christian denominations, have established NGOs to monitor and to promote the rights of the unborn, the natural family, and many other topics of common interest. These NGOs lobby at the national, regional, and international levels. This paper discusses the role of the Catholic-inspired NGO on the international level with reference to the thought of Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical, Caritas in Veritate.

International Conference on “Governance and Sustainable Development: Building Commerce and Communities,” Coimbatore, India 10th-13th December, 2012. With increasing calls for greater accountability and efficient management of sustainable development, there are also greater demands for more effective governance in this area. The overarching aim of the conference is to provide a forum for stimulating debate and exchange of ideas by exploring the latest developments in the governance of sustainable development from a variety of perspectives including environmental sustainability, social enterprise, corporate governance, legal pluralism, and social investment. The conference will appeal to academics, professionals from both business and non-profit entities, and policy makers.

The Operations Editor would work with the JBIB editor to identify data bases and journal listings that the JBIB should be in, to assist with printing and other logistics, and to help guide the future of the JBIB in the fast-paced academic journal industry. … The Book and Media Editor would work with the editorial staff of the JBIB to manage media reviews for the journal. The Editor should understand the nature of media in the 21st century, be organized, be experienced in the classroom, and be of an inquiring mind.

The course I taught was a survey of some major themes in the Catholic social tradition, with readings from Augustine, Aquinas, Maritain, and the modern papal encyclicals and conciliar documents. Interested readers can see the syllabus here. Guest speakers Father Robert Dodaro, OSA and Father Stephen Brock brought their great expertise to bear on our discussions of Augustine and Aquinas, and I took the class on a side trip to the magnificent Augustinian mother church in Rome, the Basilica Sant’Agostino, which includes the tomb of St. Monica and a wonderful Caravaggio (Madonna di Loreto).

The Association of Private Enterprise Education Annual Conference, Maui, Hawaii, April 14 – 16, 2013. “Our Entrepreneurial Future: East, West, North, and South.” The Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) invites the submission of papers for its 38th International Conference in Maui, Hawaii, April 14-16, 2013. The Association is composed of scholars from economics, philosophy, political science, and other disciplines, as well as policy analysts, business executives, and other educators. APEE’s annual meeting explores topics related to private enterprise in an atmosphere that respects market approaches. Presentations reflect the latest research in fields such as regulation, public choice, microeconomics, and Austrian economics, as well as development of instructional techniques. The submission fee for the society’s journal, The Journal of Private Enterprise, is waived for papers presented at the conference.

The philosophy of law is not separate from but dependent upon ethics and political philosophy, which it extends by that attention to the past (of sources, constitutions, contracts, acquired rights, etc.) which is characteristic of juridical thought for reasons articulated by the philosophy of law. Positivism is legitimate only as a thesis of, or topic within, natural law theory, which adequately incorporates it but remains transparently engaged with the ethical and political issues and challenges both perennial and peculiar to this age. The paper concludes by proposing a task for legal philosophy, in light of the fact that legal systems are not simply sets of norms.

This is the first study to analyze a wide spread of price data to determine whether market development led to economic growth in the early modern period. Bateman compares agricultural data with less abundant information on cloth, candles and olive oil from numerous European cities. Using a range of economic measures applied to a larger set of goods, she shows that market development occurred earlier than was previously believed.

What was the intended purpose and function of the Bill of Rights? Is the modern understanding of the Bill of Rights the same as that which prevailed when the document was ratified? In Limited Government and the Bill of Rights, Patrick Garry addresses these questions. Under the popular modern view, the Bill of Rights focuses primarily on protecting individual autonomy interests, making it all about the individual. But in Garry’s novel approach, one that tries to address the criticisms of judicial activism that have resulted from the Supreme Court’s contemporary individual rights jurisprudence, the Bill of Rights is all about government—about limiting the power of government. In this respect, the Bill of Rights is consistent with the overall scheme of the original Constitution, insofar as it sought to define and limit the power of the newly created federal government.

These are 37 audio lectures from Edmund Clowney (1917-2005) of Westminster Theological Seminary from his course, “Theology of Mission,” within a broader biblical and historical study of mission and the “theology for the city.” This is one of the offerings from WTS made available via iTunesU.

The most recent issue of JBIB focuses on the subject of hybrid business and features a controversy on the subject of Business as Mission. Margret Edgell, the issue’s guest editor, describes it as follows: “Three invited authors respond to each other from their different disciplinary and theological perspectives. They raise and debate the question: Is Business as Mission a new field with great potential for Christian scholarship?” (10)

This paper overviews classical traditional theories of consumer behavior and demonstrates their application in an introspective exercise to help students formulate a philosophy of life, with encouragement to adopt a God-centered worldview centering not on shallow personal values (e.g., material goods, pleasure, sta­tus, etc.) but rather on Christ’s values: loving and serving others, thereby loving and serving God. Students visu­alize what living life according to each of these theories and values entails. This demonstrates the theories’ personal relevance despite their flawed worldviews, and it assists students in becoming more enlightened human beings who live a purpose-driven life, pursuing God rather than shallow values that become idols.

While welcoming proposals across the social science of religion, we expect that most will be in the areas of: Religious markets, competition, monopoly, and regulation; Economic growth, development, poverty, and inequality; Social networks, and social/spiritual/religious capital; Extremism, conflict, sectarianism, and religious persecution; Application of experimental, simulation, and computational methods; Beliefs, attitudes, doctrines, norms, and values, especially in the context of evolutionary theory; Labour markets, management of volunteering and governance in not-for-profit organizations; Institutions, organizations, congregations, and denominations; Trends in participation, attendance and commitment to religious organizations; Conversion, switching, proselytizing, and the marketing of religion; Religious giving, philanthropy, and church finances; Demography, fertility, family, marriage, and gender; Education, human capital, health, and happiness; Race, ethnicity, and discrimination; Politics, public choice/finance, church-state issues, and the law.

Development theorists, economists, and geo-political scientists have indicated that this century will mark the rise of Asia as the center of economic, political, and cultural activity. Once again, Asian cultures will have a great influence in the shaping of human civilization. This is an opportune time, as we come to the dawn of the Asian century, to reflect upon the trends of philosophical thought that Asian and Christian practitioners of philosophy, or practitioners of Asian or Christian philosophy, are accomplishing. If we are taking a central role in the furthering of human civilization, we must understand what concerns us, how we use our traditions to understand the world that is unfolding, and how we can participate in the articulation of a just and sustainable future.

June 21-22th 2013, an international conference will take place in Apeldoorn on The Spirituality of the Heidelberg Catechism. The Heidelberg Catechism has a characteristic spirituality, which will be explored from historical and theological perspectives, as part of the commemoration of the 450th anniversary of this Catechism.

University of Warwick (UK), 18th-20th April 2013. The premise of this conference is that the Scientific Revolution can be considered an interdisciplinary process involving Biblical exegesis, art theory, and literary humanism, as well as natural philosophy, alchemy, occult practices, and trade knowledge. As such, Scientiae will bring together scholars working in the diverse fields associated with early modern knowledge, all taking early-modern science as their common intellectual object. The conference will offer a forum both for the sharing of research and the sparking of new interdisciplinary investigations, and is open to scholars of all levels.

We develop a spiritual and ethical based understanding of stakeholder theory that treats the natural environment as a primary stakeholder. We consider how Catholic social thought and Anabaptist-Mennonite theology can be seen as important resources for stakeholder thought and management, especially as they pertain to the natural environment as a primary stakeholder. We provide a discussion and implications for academics and practitioners in terms of dignifying both ecology and humanity, and creating solidarity between them. We also discuss how managers can become more attuned to the environment as a primary stakeholder through the development of relationships with the land and communities.

Today, effective governance is not the sole provenance of the state. Indeed, it may never have been. From governments unable to provide a stable macroeconomic environment to those that fail to provide the most rudimentary human security to those whose healthcare systems are supplemented by foreign nongovernmental organizations during natural disasters, most people live in areas of “limited statehood” where the state’s domestic sovereignty is circumscribed in some way (pp. 4-5).

Robert M. Kingdon Fellowship, Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Through a generous bequest from Robert M. Kingdon, a distinguished historian of early modern Europe, the Institute offers 1-2 external, academic-year Kingdon Fellowship(s) to scholars outside the University of Wisconsin-Madison working in historical, literary, and philosophical studies of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition and its role in society from antiquity to the present. Projects may focus on any period from antiquity to the present, on any part of the world, and in any field(s) in the humanities; can range widely or focus on a particular issue; and can explore various forms of Jewish and/or Christian traditions; the interaction of one or both of these religious traditions with other religious traditions; and/or the relationship of one or both of these religious traditions to other aspects of society such as power, politics, culture, experience, and creativity.

Despite his rehabilitation in the last quarter of the 19th century, Bellarmine’s intellectual legacy remains mixed. In one respect, at least, he was a product of his time because his vision of a res publica Christiana depended on a united Christendom that could never be restored. Yet, what is easy to see, in hindsight, was not so clear in the early 17th century. On the other hand, his defiance of royal absolutism, in defense of rule of law and religious truth, is far from outdated.

The Theological Faculty of the Humboldt University organizes a symposium on Sisterreformations II, Reformations and Ethics, September 13-15, 2012 in Berlin. In the light of the fruitful collaboration between Reformation historians trained in the German and Anglo-Saxon academic traditions during the 2009 Berlin symposium ‘Sister Reformations: The Reformation in Germany and in England’, a second gathering will now take place in 2012 to examine the theme ‘Reformation and Ethics’. For, although all parties in the Sixteenth Century accepted moral renovation as intrinsic to the Christian life, the exact place of ethics in this process, especially in relation to faith, was one of the most disputed points not only between the Reformers and their adversaries but also between the different strands of the Reformation itself. Consequently, this new symposium, jointly planned by the chairs of Reformation History in Berlin and Durham (UK), shall consider the principal ethical and theological questions involved as well as the actual moral decisions and patterns of behaviour associated with the English and German Reformations.

In this talk, Steven Horwitz will argue that the enhanced freedom with respect to family choices that has characterised the modern family and is celebrated by those on the political left, is largely a product of the economic system, market capitalism, which they often reject. At the same time, those on the right who are troubled by these changes in the family, including the demand for same-sex marriage, need to realise that such cultural changes are an inevitable by-product of the economic freedom they claim to celebrate. Steven will argue it is capitalism that is the main driver of the evolution of the western family and the wider array of family structures, which characterises the 21st century, representing an increased cultural freedom brought on by the freedom to engage in capitalist acts between consenting adults and the wealth it brings in its wake.

This volume brings together eminent theologians, philosophers and political theorists to discuss the relevance of theology and theologically grounded moral reflection to contemporary America’s public life and argument. Avoiding the focus on hot-button issues, shrill polemics, and sloganeering that so often dominate discussions of religion and public life, the contributors address such subjects as how religious understandings have shaped the moral landscape of contemporary culture, the possible contributions of theologically-informed argument to contemporary public life, religious and moral discourse in a pluralistic society, and the proper relationship between religion and culture.

Undergraduate economics students begin and end their study of economics with the simple claim that economics is value free. Only in a policy role will values and beliefs enter into economic work; there can be little meaningful dialogue by economists about such personal views and opinions. This view, now well over 200 years old, has been challenged by heterodox thinkers in economics, and philosophers and social scientists outside the discipline all along the way. However, much of the debate in modern times has been narrowly focused on philosophical methodological issues on one hand or theological/sectarian concerns on the other. None of this filters down to the typical undergraduate even in advanced courses on the history of economic thought. This book presents the notion that economic thinking cannot escape value judgments at any level and that this understanding has been the dominant view throughout most of history. It shows how, from ancient times, people who thought about economic matters integrated moral reflection into their thinking. Reflecting on the Enlightenment and the birth of economics as a science, Halteman and Noell illustrate the process by which values and beliefs were excluded from economics proper. They also appraise the reader with relevant developments over the last half-century which offer promise of re-integrating moral reflection in economic research.

Ethical human agency is only possible with freedom. Freely turning to the good, which the Creator has given us, is the highest sign of human dignity. The proper exercise of freedom requires “specific conditions of an economic, social, juridic, political and cultural order”. (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, n. 137) The free market is one of these institutions. The free market is the most efficient instrument to guarantee the distribution of goods and services in society. Beyond efficiency, however, markets need sound ethical and cultural foundations. Only free markets can be ethical markets, and only ethical markets can function in freedom. One of these primary and universally recognized ethical principles is charity.

We are pleased to announce an extended deadline for the Call for Papers for the “State of the Consecrated Life in Contemporary Canada” Conference to be held on 25-26 January 2013 in Montreal, Quebec. This conference is held as a part of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada research grant that explores the state of consecrated life in contemporary Canada and seeks will bring together leading researchers from Canada and abroad to share research and insights on this important subject. For more information, please see the attached document or the conference website: www.consecratedlife.ca. The new deadline will be 31 July 2012. Please forward this information to any colleagues, students or contacts who might be interested.

International Congress on Medieval Studies, 9-12 May 2013. By the late medieval period, merchants formed an integral part of urban society; among their activities, they facilitated trade between city centers, participated in the governing of cities, and were patrons of churches and monasteries. At the same time, the wealth that they amassed and their sometimes morally dubious activities, such as money lending, often left merchants fearful of what the afterlife would bring, causing them to appeal directly to specific saints for intercession. This session seeks to explore the religious lives of these elite members of urban society, specifically considering the individual saints to whom merchants appealed for their earthly protection and heavenly salvation as well as the manner in which they made these appeals.

2012 Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture (Thursday, October 25-Saturday, October 27) Technology changes us—and the world around us—in countless ways. It eases our labor, cures diseases, provides abundant food and clean water, enables communication and travel across the globe, and expands our knowledge of the natural world and the cosmos. The stuff of science fiction is now, in many cases, reality, and it can make our lives longer, healthier, and more productive than ever. But technological advance is not without complication, and even ardent proponents of technology recognize that our present age of innovation is fraught with concern for unintended consequences.

Social Security benefits may be commenced at any time between age 62 and age 70. As individuals who claim later can, on average, expect to receive benefits for a shorter period, an actuarial adjustment is made to the monthly benefit amount to reflect the age at which benefits are claimed. We investigate the actuarial fairness of this adjustment. Our simulations suggest that delaying is actuarially advantageous for a large subset of people, particularly for real interest rates of 3.5 percent or below.